Viking Ocean Cruises announces new ships

Viking Ocean Cruising – sister company to Viking River Cruising – has announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Fincantieri shipyard for the construction of two new ships with the option of a further two.

The ships, which are reported to be small ships in line with Viking’s destination-focused ethos – will be approximately 48,000GT.

“This additional order indicates just how strong early response has been to our ocean cruise concept which focuses on small ship destination cruising at a great value,” commented Torstein Hagen chairman of Viking. “We are very excited to have Fincantieri as a partner as we work to bring the destination back to ocean cruising.”

Giuseppe Bono, CEO of Fincantieri, said: “We are very pleased to intensify our collaboration with Viking and this new agreement demonstrates our ability to compete in the market. We have done our part and we hope that the institutions responsible for supporting exports will continue to sustain those in this strategic industry for the national economy.” Bono concluded: “We also hope that the unions and workers feel confident about the future by giving their utmost commitment to making our company ever more competitive. Without this determination, the excellent results achieved this year, namely acquisition of basically all the new prototype cruise ships projects in 2012, will be hard to maintain.”